Mark Bright

Mark David Bright (born December 22, 1959) is an American country music producer, songwriter, and publishing company executive based in Nashville.

His peers call Bright "one of the architects of the modern contemporary country sound".

Bright's most noted success in producing records has been with the country acts BlackHawk, Rascal Flatts, and Carrie Underwood, but he has produced recordings for many artists including Reba McEntire, Sara Evans, Scotty McCreery, Lonestar, Peter Cetera, Brad Paisley, Luke Bryan, and Keith Urban

Bright grew up in Longview, Texas, where his parents, Delbert and Jean Bright moved in 1964.

In his early teens Bright was diagnosed as being dyslexic; however, he excelled at music.

He played drums, piano and guitar and performed in various bands through high school and college, but had no desire to be a performing artist.

He was fascinated by the production side of music.

At age 22, Bright came to Nashville and attended Belmont University.

He got a job working in the Screen Gems/EMI music tape room.

At first, his job was mundane, splicing demo tapes together onto large reels putting markers between each song.

Using connections he had made at Belmont, he befriended David Briggs, the owner of a studio next door to where Bright worked.

Briggs gave him a job as "third engineer" meaning that he did custodial work and was not allowed to touch the equipment at first, but was able to observe recording sessions.

Over time he learned the technique of how to properly record music and he was allowed to make some demos at nights and on weekends.

In doing so, he met many artists, publishers and songwriters in addition to honing his craft as a budding record producer.

Bright became friends with Tim DuBois, head of Arista Records in Nashville, who was not only a label executive but a creative-type person whom Bright naturally related to as a fellow "song junkie".

The two enjoyed playing songs for each other and analyzing them critically, leading DuBois to recognize Bright's keen insight into what makes a commercially good song.

DuBois had under contract three musicians whom he suggested work together rather than go for separate careers.

The new trio was named "BlackHawk" and consisted of Henry Paul, Dave Robbins, and Van Stephenson.

They recorded several songs, but DuBois was not happy with their sound and he asked Bright to spend time with them to come up with something with more commercial appeal.

Bright collaborated with the band on intensive rehearsal sessions in a basement studio over several months, coming up with a bluegrass-type sound but with rock guitars, blending a mandolin and close vocal harmonies.

Bright thought the sound was a "game changer".

DuBois agreed and was willing to give Bright his first job as producer.

Bright's entry job in the music industry was in 1993 working as tape-splicer for Screen Gems/EMI Publishing in Nashville.

Over the next 12 years he worked his way up to vice-president of the company.

Arista Records president Tim DuBois gave Bright his first producing job with the band BlackHawk, which resulted in multi-platinum sales and spawned 13 additional albums produced by Bright, yielding album sales of over four million.

Despite this success, Bright was not able to duplicate it in subsequent projects and was eventually terminated from EMI.

After his departure, he was approached by EMI's competitor at the time, Sony/ATV, who offered him a joint venture in publishing, production and management.

The new company, named "Teracel", prospered in its first year due in large measure to Bright's signing of songwriter Brett James, who created many commercially successful songs for various country artists.

Bright's production of BlackHawk's first single, "Goodbye Says It All" was released in 1993 and reached number 11 on the Billboard Country charts.

In 1999, Bright heard three musicians who were performing in a bar in Nashville's Printer's Alley and thought their vocal harmonies had promise.

The group, nameless at the time, was signed to a production and management deal and a recording contract by Bright, who developed them into the enormously successful trio "Rascal Flatts".

Their first seven albums reached platinum sales and they eventually sold over 20 million albums.

Bright was tapped by Arista Nashville in 2005 to produce the debut album of that year's American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood.

The album, Some Hearts, had unprecedented success winning three Grammy Awards, Best New Artist for Underwood, and was called Billboard Country Album of The Decade.

Bright has continued to produce Underwood's music throughout her recording career including Underwood's NBC Sunday Night Football intro/theme songs.

He sold Teracel Music in a highly lucrative transaction in 2006, then formed a new publishing company, "My Good Girl Music/Chatterbox Music" which was another a co-venture with Sony/ATV.

From 2008 to 2010, Bright served as president and CEO of Word Entertainment, a Warner/Curb company representing Christian music artists.

He served on the Board of Governors for The Recording Academy, Nashville chapter, and on the board of directors of the Country Music Association(CMA).

Bright wrote songs for decades but never devoted much time to it; however, one of his songs became number one hit for George Strait and several of his songs have been recorded by successful artists.

As of 2017, Underwood has had 21 number one hits produced by Bright.